


Untitled Yondu Story

by Athena83



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 21:37:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16626878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athena83/pseuds/Athena83
Summary: Yondu agrees to pick up a young Peter Quill for Ego, but he has no intention of handing the boy over.





	Untitled Yondu Story

Yondu had picked up a lot of kids for Ego over the years. He used to question how one man could have so many children, all over the galaxy, but he gave up wondering about it a long time ago. As long as he got paid, he didn’t care how many children Ego had. And he did get paid. Ego was not stingy. Yondu had named an insanely high price, and Ego had not hesitated to agree to it. Yondu had been expecting to haggle, which was why he had made his fee so high, but he was thrilled to be paid so much for such a seemingly easy job. 

Yondu’s job was to pick up the kid, deliver it safely to Ego, and get paid. It was definitely easy money. He did regret that Stakar had exiled him for it, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

“We don’t deal in kids,” Stakar had told him when he’d found out about Yondu’s deal with Ego. 

Yondu had tried to defend himself, to explain that Ego was their father, and it wasn’t like he was delivering them into slavery, but Stakar refused to listen. 

So Yondu had been exiled and was left with the worst of the Ravagers as his crew. Most of the “good” ones had joined other crews after his exile. He didn’t even try to fool himself into thinking the remaining members stayed out of loyalty – most of them just didn’t have anywhere else to go. 

“Cap’n,” said Tullk, one of the few crew members Yondu thought might actually be loyal to him. “Ego’s on the holo-screen.” 

“I’ll take it in here,” Yondu replied.

“Yes, Cap’n.” Tullk left, but Yondu hesitated before turning on his holo-screen.

He had been expecting Ego’s call, but he still wasn’t looking forward to seeing Ego’s face. He didn’t want Ego to see his plan written on his own face, but he also didn’t know if he could look Ego in the eye without telling him exactly what he thought of him. 

Sure this could be another easy payday, but that was before he had found out the ugly truth about Ego that still made him sick to think about – the truth he tried to hide from himself, but could never successfully keep buried for long. 

He should stay out of it; tell Ego he’s too busy to make the run. But he was guilty of unwittingly sending countless kids to their deaths, and even though saving one wouldn’t change that fact, he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t at least try to stop it from happening this time. 

Finally he turned on the holo-screen.

“Ego,” Yondu nodded a greeting to the holo-screen. 

“Yondu! I’ve got another job for you!”

“Go on.”

“I’ve recently found out I have another child, and I want you to bring him to me so he can join his family.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s on Terra, in a place called Missouri. His name is Peter Quill.”

“Same fee?” It made him sick to even pretend to be interested in the money, but he couldn’t let Ego get suspicious.

“Of course.”

Yondu waited for a moment, then nodded, and said, “Done.”

“Excellent! I knew I could count on you! I’ll send the coordinates to your ship, and I expect I’ll see you soon.”

“I expect so.”

Ego disconnected the call, and Yondu picked up his communicator. “Tullk.”

“Yes, Cap’n?” came Tullk’s immediate reply. 

“Ego is sending the coordinates for another pickup. Set a course for Terra as soon as they come in.” 

“Yes, sir.”

____________________________________________________

Yondu was waiting impatiently for the boy to exit the building. Ego’s directions had led him here, and Ego’s directions hadn’t been wrong yet, but he wasn’t sure why the boy would be in a hospital. Was he sick? Yondu didn’t care, as long as the boy wasn’t contagious. 

Suddenly, one of the doors of the hospital opened, and a boy stumbled out. He ran a short distance, then fell to his knees. Yondu recognized him from Ego’s description, and he wasted no time in getting the M-ship in position to pick the kid up. He was alone at the moment, and Yondu knew he had to act fast. It always complicated things when other people were around. 

“Kraglin! Oblo! Get ready to grab the boy!”

Yondu pressed a button on his control panel, and a bright light illuminated the boy. The kid looked up, but was beamed to the M-ship before he could run.

As soon as he appeared on the M-ship, Kraglin grabbed him and pushed him into a chair, while Oblo quickly bound him to the chair with rope.

Walking into the room, Yondu ordered, “Kraglin, take over the controls – set a course back to the Eclector.” 

Kraglin clapped his fist to his chest in a Ravager salute, and replied, “Yes, Cap’n!” He then hurried into the cockpit to return the M-ship to the Eclector.

The boy had seemed to be in shock upon first arriving on the M-ship, but shock had quickly turned into panic. He struggled against his bonds while yelling, “Let me go!”

“Calm down, boy, ya ain’t goin’ nowhere, so ya might as well stop struggling,” said Yondu.

Catching sight of Yondu for the first time, the boy’s already pale face blanched even whiter. 

“You’re… you’re blue,” he panted.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” replied Yondu dryly.

“What’s going on? Where are you taking me?” the boy demanded.

He wasn’t crying at the moment, but Yondu could tell he had been not too long before, possibly right before they picked him up. Had something gone wrong at the hospital?

“I’m takin’ ya to my ship,” he answered.

“The ship?” interrupted Oblo.

“Yeah, the ship. Keep yer mouth shut and yer eyes on the boy.” He strode back to the cockpit, and said, “Get back there and help Oblo keep an eye on the boy. Make sure he stays quiet.” 

“Yes, sir, Cap’n,” Kraglin replied before he hurried to the back. 

Yondu sat down, checked that the M-ship was still heading in the right direction, then rested his head in his hands. He must have been crazy to even consider this. What was he supposed to do with a Terran boy on the ship?

He briefly considered taking the kid back to Terra, but it was only a matter of time before Ego found out and hired someone else to pick the boy up. He sighed. He didn’t have a choice, he’d just take the boy to the Eclector for now, and then decide what to do with him later.

He could still hear the kid in the back room – yelling, demanding answers, but not crying or begging. He couldn’t help but admire the kid’s spunk. Most Terrans would be scared witless if they had been abducted by Ravagers from space. Not that the kid wasn’t scared, but at least he was trying not to show it. 

The next jump point was coming up, so Yondu aimed the M-ship towards it as he continued to try to come up with a plan. Only two jumps to go – they’d reach the Eclector in a matter of minutes – and he didn’t have a clue how he was going to explain the presence of a small Terran boy to the crew, especially when they knew that the boy was supposed to be going to Ego. The crew wouldn’t question him – he was the Captain, after all – but he still didn’t want them to start muttering about him behind his back. All it would take was one well-placed word about him being weak, and then he was sure to have a mutiny on his hands. 

As he headed through the last jump point, a small plan started forming in his head. It wasn’t the best plan, but he was out of time, and it would have to do. There was no time left for working out the details, so he would just have to play it by ear. 

___________________________________________________

Yondu docked the M-ship on the Eclector, took a deep breath, then walked to the back room where Kraglin, Oblo, and the boy were waiting. 

“Bring the boy,” he commanded Kraglin, as he headed for the back of the ship to return to the Eclector.

“But, Cap’n, ain’t we takin’ the kid to E-” started Oblo.

“I said ‘bring the boy’, I didn’t ask for yer questions,” snarled Yondu, without breaking stride. “Come on!” 

Kraglin quickly tied the boy’s hands behind his back, then removed the bonds securing him to the chair.

“C’mon now. No funny business,” he told the boy.

The kid had started struggling again, but Yondu wasn’t worried about him escaping now. He couldn’t go too far. They’d find him eventually.

Yondu opened his wrist communicator. “Tullk! Have everyone meet in the mess hall – now!”

“Yes, sir!”

A few seconds later, they heard Tullk’s scratchy voice over the ship’s intercom: “All crew members to the mess hall immediately! Cap’n’s orders! I repeat, all crew members report to the mess hall.”

When they reached the entrance to the mess hall, Yondu stopped and turned to face the others. “Keep the boy out here ‘til I tell y’all to come in.”

The kid was still struggling to break free of Kraglin’s grip. Yondu glanced at him before turning back to the entrance.

“You can’t keep me here!” the boy yelled.

Yondu ignored him, and proceeded inside the mess hall. He still wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to say, but he hadn’t made it this far in life without learning how to handle a group of Ravagers.

At the sight of their Captain, the rowdy group of Ravagers broke out into an incoherent cacophony of cheers and shouting, a few giving him the Ravager salute.

He lifted his hand to quieten the men, though, truthfully, it was impossible to ever achieve complete silence with this group. 

“I got some news. We’re takin’ on a new crew member,” he announced to the group. This was met with a slight rumble of muttering – an extra crew member meant less money for the rest. Yondu continued, “I picked him up on Terra – a kid – and he’ll be a good asset for us. He’s small, can fit into places we can’t – good for thievin’.”

This seemed to satisfy most of the crew, but Taserface yelled out, “A kid? This ain’t the same kid you was supposed to be takin’ to Ego, is it?” 

Yondu whistled; his arrow flew up and hovered by his head.

“And so what if it is? Ya got a problem with that?”

“If we ain’t deliverin’ the brat to Ego, we ain’t gettin’ paid,” griped Taserface, though he was eyeing the arrow warily.

“We ain’t, not today, but I reckon this is an investment for future earnings – the Treasury of Xandar, for example.”

At these words, the noise in the room got considerably louder as the men started talking at once.

“Are ya sayin’ we’re gonna break into the Treasury?” asked Narblik. 

“Don’t see why we can’t try it, now that we got ourselves a tiny Ravager,” replied Yondu.

There were loud whoops and excited cheers, and Yondu knew he had them now. He wasn’t sure how they’d manage the Treasury heist, even with a small Ravager, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. 

“Kraglin! Bring the boy in here!”

Kraglin and Oblo escorted the boy in, each holding one of his arms. Clearly he had doubled his efforts to escape. When they reached Yondu, he grabbed the boy’s arm and turned him to face the men.

“Say hello to your new crewmate, boys!” he yelled, with a crooked grin. “His name’s -” What had Ego said his name was? Paul? Peter? Peter – that was it. “Peter Quail.”

“It’s Quill,” scowled Peter.

“Whatever, kid, welcome to the Ravagers,” he replied with a smirk.

He turned to Kraglin, and said, “Keep an eye on him, show him the ropes. And if anyone lays a hand on him, they answer to me.”

Without another word, he strode out of the room. He heard Peter yelling behind him, “Hey! Wait! I’m not joining your stupid Ravagers! Get back here and let me go!” 

Yondu kept walking.

____________________________________________________________

As Yondu headed back to the Captain’s quarters, he couldn’t help but think back to the day, eight months earlier, when it had all gone wrong.

Eight Months Earlier:

It had started like any other day. Yondu had gotten up, dressed, and headed to the mess hall for breakfast. There had only been a few members of the crew around – most were still asleep, and the others were on duty keeping the ship running. He grabbed some food and sat down at a rickety metal table.

“Mornin’,” he said to the table in general. 

“Mornin’, Cap’n,” came the mumbled reply from the few Ravagers at the table. They sat without talking while they ate – Ravagers were not morning people.

Yondu was thinking about everything he needed to do that day when his thoughts were interrupted by the beeping of his wrist communicator. He glanced at the screen and saw Tullk’s name flashing.

“What is it, Tullk?”

“We got a problem with the fuel tanks, Cap’n. They’re leakin’ and we’re losin’ fuel fast.”

“Well, fix ‘em. That’s why I got a maintenance crew, ain’t it?”

“We’re tryin’, Cap’n, but Vorker thinks it would be safer if we landed somewhere. He, er – said it would be better to land now instead of waitin’ to be blasted out of the sky.” 

Sighing, Yondu said, “Fine. I’ll go see about findin’ us a safe place to land.”

“Aye, Cap’n, I’ll let Vorker know.”

Abandoning his breakfast, Yondu headed toward the cockpit. “I swear, it’s always somethin’,” he muttered to himself, as he walked down the empty hallway. 

When he walked into the cockpit, he was met by a Ravager salute, and a grim, “Mornin’ Cap’n Yondu,” from Oblo. “Tullk said we were makin’ an emergency landin’?”

“Seems like it. Where are we close to?”

“Well, we’re about 75 jumps from the closest planet with a shop to buy parts…” he hesitated.

They both knew jumps were risky with a fuel leak – multiple jumps were tempting fate – but 75? That was a suicide run.

“What’s the closest planet? Don’t worry ‘bout whether they might have parts.”

“Ego.”

“How far is it?”

“Five jumps, Cap’n.”

“We’ll go there.”

He sat down in the Captain’s chair and took over control of the ship. He didn’t trust anyone but himself to make these jumps with a faulty fuel tank.

He entered the coordinates for Ego, then aimed the Eclector towards the direction of the first jump. He held his breath as he steered the ship through the first jump point. He heard Oblo breathe a sigh of relief as they safely emerged.

Yondu turned to him with a smirk, and said, “You ain’t worried, are ya?”

Oblo let out a shaky laugh. “I’d be lyin’ if I said I ain’t a little worried.”

“Well, ya ain’t got nothin’ to worry about with yer Captain flyin’ the ship.”

He may have acted cocky on the outside, but he couldn’t lie to himself – he was worried.

He entered the second jump point, and tried to focus on holding the ship steady. They exited safely – two down, three to go. He didn’t mention it to Oblo, but he could feel the ship losing momentum. He entered and exited the third jump point without incident.

As he directed the ship through the fourth jump, the ship gave a slight lurch. He spared a glance at Oblo, and noticed he was holding onto the chair arms so tightly that his knuckles were white against the dark material of the chair. 

He returned his attention to the fifth and final jump point, as the ship gave another shuddering lurch. He took a steadying breath, then aimed the ship toward the entrance. He could hear Oblo murmuring under his breath beside him, but couldn’t make out the words. 

Although it usually only took a few seconds to go through a jump point, this one seemed to take several lifetimes. After what felt like an eternity, they left the jump point behind, and he let out an audible sigh of relief. 

Oblo, pale and wide-eyed, turned to Yondu, and in a slightly shaky voice, joked, “Not worried, were ya?”

“’Course not. Nothin’ to it,” he grinned. “There’s Ego, straight ahead.” 

The Eclector entered Ego’s atmosphere, and Yondu carefully landed the ship. He didn’t see anyone around, but that wasn’t unusual – Ego always made him land away from the main buildings – basically out in the middle of a desert. Yondu had never cared because Ego met him at the ship each time anyway, but he was afraid this time he would have to cross that desert. He thought he should let Ego know they were there – they might be Ravagers, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have any manners at all. He sighed, stood up, and said, “Tell Vorker to get to work on the fuel tanks. I expect some progress by the time I get back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Yondu walked out of the cockpit and headed towards the ship’s exit. Pressing a button on the panel by the door, he lowered the ramp, and walked out into the reddish glare of Ego.

He wasn’t sure where exactly he’d find Ego, but he figured someone would be able to point him in the right direction. 

“I reckon it’ll be the biggest and ugliest building on the planet,” he muttered to himself.

He continued to enjoy the peace and solitude as he walked toward the city. Quiet and alone time were things he never got on a Ravager ship, so he tried to savor each moment. 

After about fifteen minutes of walking, he was nearing the city, but still couldn’t hear anything. He thought he should have been able to hear the slight buzzing of a busy marketplace, or the shrill laughter of children – he had delivered enough of them that he knew there had to be some around somewhere. 

The closer he got, the warier he became. Something was definitely not right. It was still eerily silent, and this close to the gate, he should have heard something. There should have been guards posted, at the very least. He didn’t think Ego was stupid enough to leave everything unguarded.

He slowly walked through the gate and looked around. The buildings were just as gaudy and ugly as he figured they would be, but there was no sign of a single person. He walked on, looking for someone, anyone, but after searching in vain for several minutes, he gave up. Had something happened? An attack? It didn’t look like there was damage anywhere. As a matter of fact, the place looked pristine, like it had never been touched at all.

And now that he thought about it, there were no houses, no places for people to live. Just huge palaces and ugly sculptures.

Deciding to head back to the ship and forget about finding Ego, he turned around and heard a distinct crunching noise. Looking down, he raised his foot and saw that he had stepped on a skull – a human skull.

“What the - ?”

He looked ahead and saw another bone, and what looked like yet another skull a little farther ahead.

Feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the breeze, he looked around while trying to make up his mind. The smart thing to do would be to head back to the ship and forget it. He had a bad feeling about the whole thing, but even though he knew he would likely regret it, his curiosity got the better of him. 

He grumbled to himself as he walked out of a side gate and followed the trail of bones. Away from the empty city, the green grass gave way to red dirt again, and the dust swirled around him as he walked. 

He glanced at the Eclector, which he could still see in the distance, but he kept following the scattered bones. The thought that he kept trying to push back – the thought that kept shoving its way to the front of his consciousness – was that these were small bones. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean. 

He came upon an outcropping of jagged rocks and cautiously moved around them. He saw a cave ahead, and he dreaded what he would find as he picked his way across the bones and miniature skulls. He hesitated at the mouth of the cave, but continued inside. It was dark, but not dark enough to hide the horrifying sight that met his eyes. Mounds of skeletons were piled all around the cave, almost to the ceiling. To Yondu’s horror, all of the skeletons were small – they could only be the skeletons of children. 

Feeling sick, Yondu staggered back to the mouth of the cave. Leaning over with his hands on his knees, he tried to breathe normally. He was clearly not the only one delivering kids to Ego – this was decades’ worth of bones – but he was part of it. And if he had delivered even one kid to this fate, it was one too many. Overwhelmed with sudden guilt, all he could think was, “I did this. This is my fault.” He hadn’t killed them, but he had brought them here, which he felt made him just as guilty as the one who actually killed them – Ego. He had no doubt that it had been Ego. He didn’t know why – not that it mattered – but he knew in his gut that Ego was responsible. 

Anger flared up amidst the guilt, and his fin glowed red. Part of him wanted to go find Ego and put an arrow through his heart, but he knew the best thing to do was to leave immediately. He didn’t think Ego knew they were there – he would have shown himself by now – so if Vorker managed to fix the ship soon, they could leave before Ego found out they were ever there.

He began to walk back to the ship. He didn’t know if he could bring himself to tell the crew what he’d found. Maybe his penance would be to carry the guilt alone for the rest of his wretched life. 

Tullk was waiting for him at the entrance when he got back to the ship. 

“Is it fixed?” Yondu scowled, walking into the ship without breaking stride.

If Tullk noticed the fury radiating off his Captain, he didn’t mention it.

“Not yet, Cap’n. Vorker says he should be finished in about twenty minutes.”

“Tell him to hurry up. As soon as he’s finished, get us off this planet.”

Yondu kept walking, but Tullk stopped to close the ship’s door.

“Where to next, Cap’n?” he called to Yondu’s retreating form.

“Contraxia.”

He knew the best way to distract the crew from his obvious torment was to give them permission to let off some steam away from the ship. Drinking himself into oblivion at the Iron Lotus sounded like a good idea, but he couldn’t bear the thought of being around anyone else right now, so he knew he’d be drinking himself into a stupor in his own quarters tonight. 

Once he was alone in his quarters, he fell to his knees and held his head in his hands. 

All of it was for nothing – his exile was for nothing. Stakar had been right – he hadn’t deserved to be a Ravager. Sure, Ravagers weren’t exactly the best people, but they had a code, and Yondu had broken it. He hadn’t really done it for the money, but no one would believe that, and he would never admit it anyway.

Growing up as a Kree battle slave, Yondu had obviously had a terrible childhood, and he had thought he was giving Ego’s children a better life. Reuniting those kids with a seemingly loving father had seemed like a noble thing to do at the time, no matter what Stakar said. But now? Now he knew better and it was killing him. What he had done was no different than what his own parents had done to him. 

He yelled in rage, an incoherent scream filled with anger and despair. After a moment, he pulled himself to his feet and made his way to the cabinet where he kept his private store of liquor. He grabbed the first two bottles he saw, sank to the floor, and tried to drink his pain away. 

__________________________________________________

Pulling himself out of this terrible memory as he reached the door to his quarters, he walked inside, crossed to his bed, and sat down. Rubbing his face, he wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess. Bringing a Terran kid onto a Ravager ship? What was he thinking? Sighing, he fell back on the bed and decided he’d worry about it tomorrow. How much trouble could one Terran kid be, anyway? If the boy annoyed him too much, he’d just drop him off somewhere and let him fend for himself. With that thought, Yondu yawned and eventually drifted off to sleep.


End file.
